"Although I speak from my own experience, I feel that no one has the right to impose his or her beliefs on another person. I will not propose to you that my way is best. The decision is up to you. If you find some point which may be suitable for you, then you can carry out experiments for yourself. If you find that it is off no use, then you can discard it." Dalai Lama...

Monday, 28 February 2011

Monday....

I set the alarm for 8.30 -snoozed it many times - lot's of thinking going on ;-) Finally rolled out of bed around 9.30.

As usual Emily and I had been late to bed. I had a bath and was getting into bed around 12.15.Slept like a log - unusual - til around 5 ( must have been all that fresh air on the walk ), when the urge to go to the loo became too much, then the restless legs took over and the dance moves began :-) Poor Alan - not sure I could cope if things were reversed...

Sunny morning lifted my spirits ;-)

Pottered around doing the usual morning tasks and preparing our swim bag. It was so lovely to have the sun streaming through the sun room windows.I put up the mirror I had painted in the lobby and decided it might need another coat - or perhaps ( maybe the easier option ) I will just distress it to give it that shabby chic look ;-) Also realised I would need to take down the coat rack and give that a coat of paint.

Woke Milly around 10.30.We had a cranial osteopathy app for 12.30 and would be leaving about 12, she likes a while to come round and rarely eats straight after waking...

Fed Milly ( who also woke in a good mood ) and we set off in good time.

I had bought Julie of the Wolves in story Cd and we listened to it on our way,we both enjoyed it and Milly had a smile on her face at the descriptions of the Wolves.Talked about getting the book to read to her, as the CD is abridged...

App with Judith went well.Milly in top form, chatty and very funny.We have been going to Judith for many years but Emily has received Cranial osteopathy - on and off - since she was around 10 months old.At that age it was feeding difficulties and reflux.

Milly has had a growth and headaches and aches and pains associated with that are helped amazingly well with this gentle treatment.Have another app booked for next Mon.

Off to do the shopping at Morrison's.Lunch was first on the agenda though.After eating we played with her new Sims 3 game - trying to work it out - I am not much help with these things and often find she manages to work it out herself!

Milly doesn't like shopping and I rarely ask her to do it ,choosing instead to find other times to do it when Alan is at home. As we were going to be there for lunch today I had said it would save me a trip tomorrow( which would mean more play time ) if we could do it today.

She made a game up where she got a list with three of the items on my list on it and had to find them and I had three things to find and whoever got back first won.She beat me :-) We had good fun and the time flew by.We also managed to get Alpha and Omega DVD ( we had missed seeing at at the Cinema).

We put the shopping in the boot and all the fridge food in the two cooler boxes and headed off to the pool.

Had a really fabulous time.We went in the steam room and the sauna and dared each other to 'ice cube' (cold shower) afterwards.Laughed so much and had the pool to ourselves most of the time. As usual a wide range of topics were covered and conversations included ( amongst many others ) George Orwell's 1984 Big brother and health benefits of a sauna.

Back home by 5.30, tea for Milly and Al. I unpacked the food and managed to get some emails and stuff sorted before having my soup.

We are going to make a chocolate fudge cake shortly before Glee ( I have only seen odd bits of it and Milly has got into it, so will watch with her so I know what she is talking about ) at 9.

Mum and Dad visiting tomorrow and also Kelly the hairdresser is coming to dye Milly's hair black ( it will be a very dark brown that looks black but will not be as harsh and will fade over time) she is also having pinky red, chunky streaks put in, so photo's tomorrow :-)

Milly's Justgiving page for Little Princess Trust.

Milly's Facebook Charity Page

Milly's Charity Blog

Milly's JustGiving Page for Cancer research

We are on a journey....

After taking our daughter out of school we decided on an autonomous approach and set off full of hope. The journey so far has not always been easy - but it has been worth it. We have our happy, funny, loving daughter back again. It also seems possible this unconventional way of living will change our lives for ever. Would you like to join us on the journey as we grow and learn more about unschooling and what it means for us?

Reclaiming our life.

Ebay account

When I set about creating this blog The title and blog description just came to me one night.It simply flowed without thought at all.Many months later I discovered John Holt and this quote!!

"A life worth living and work worth doing - that is what I want for all children." - John Holt.

This is me.....

There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Take me... or leave me. Accept me - or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don't fit your idea of who I should be and don't try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision.When you are strong enough to love yourself 100%, good and bad - you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you.” Stacey Charter.

Kindness

"This is my simple religion.There is no need for temples; no need for complicatedphilosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness." The Dalai Lama.

Karma...

“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.” Wayne Dyer

A collection of quotes....

Do not ask that your kids live up to your expectations. Let your kids be who they are, and your expectations will be in breathless pursuit... Robert Brault.

'You can't give what you don't have,' some people say, and if you want your children to give generosity and kindness and patience to others, you should give them so much they're overflowing with it. ** —Sandra Dodd

Why we Home educate

( Slightly edited from a blog post I did when we started out) In the end the actual decision to take Emily out only took a matter of days but before that it had been around a year and a half of talking about ti and reading books, Free range education by Terri Dowty, Educating your child at home by Jane Lowe and Alan Thomas were two that had a real impact for different reasons. Free range education has lots of examples of real life home educators and I think I can say that it was this one that convinced me the most that we could do it.We are two very average people ,neither of us left school with many qualifications, we went on to do quite well in our chosen professions and had no need to think about the education system at all until Emily came along.I knew about home education and when Emily was born considered it as an optionbut always felt my lack of education would be a problem and that I wouldn't be capable of providing her with what she would need.Looking back with hindsight it is easy to see how wrong I was!!

School never really suited Emily......After the nursery year at a very highly rated, high achieving school we knew that particular School wasn't for us and took her out. We enrolled her in a lovely village school with only 70 children in the whole school .The ethos of the school was totally different, the children didn't wear uniforms and there was much more emphasis on the children being individuals.The head was a sensitive and principled man who wanted the best for the children. We thought we had struck gold.Over the reception and year 1 Emily gained confidence and really started to bloom. It was at this time she was diagnosed with dyspraxia( we had had to go down the diagnosis route as our observations of Emily's difficulties were not enough to enable the teachers to tailor things so she was helped and given less work in class) but she managed quite well in the more relaxed play orientated early years.Year 2 with more emphasis on academic activities got progressively harder for her. She is very sensitive and it wasn't just the academic side it was the embarassment of having to put her hand up for the toilet,seeing others being told off and worrying in case she did something wrong and got the same treatment, panicking because she couldn't do the work and the teacher never had time to sit with her (alot of this did not come out until she had left school) her behaviour at home became worse and worse she was so angry and obviously stressed . At this time we began to seriously consider taking her out but held back because of my lack of confidence in my ability to provide her with an adequate education ,my health being so poor was also a major stumbling block.

Then in year three it became blatantly obvious that something needed to change .She was struggling on all levels and we couldn't allow the school system to damage our daughter anymore.She became ill with a bug that was doing the rounds and she was off for two weeks , during that time I had a conversation with a friend who home educates her two children and I was so upset I couldn't make a decision and she said just go with whats in your heart and that really helped me to shift my thinking and stop worrying about what I couldn't give her and focus on what I could give her.

We never sent her back.I still get emotional when I think of that time , the look on Emily's face when we told her she would never have to go back to school was priceless,the immense sense of relief that we were off the treadmill of school life and the excitement of the time ahead and to be honest the fear of the unknown......

So here we are four years on and a lot of reading and researching later I feel comfortable with what we are doing . The changes that have happened so far have been helped along the way by the many wonderful blogs out there.They are so varied and there are so many different approaches , I have found ones that I can identify with and have read a lot of archive material that has been written in each and found answers to so many of the questions I have had that they have helped me to sort out what will work best for us .As much as I wish we had done this earlier and saved Emily from the distress that she went through I do believe things happen for a reason and that the time was right for us to take her out and that looking on the bright side one of the benefits is that at least she has had a taste of school and now we all know without a doubt that it is not for us !!!!

It is very liberating to be making decisions based on what works best for us as a family and not what society expects.

About Me

Life really did begin for me at 40! 39 to be precise, when Emily was born ;-).I have been married very happily for 25 years to Alan.I am gradually recovering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome after 12 years and we are home educating our Twelve year old daughter Emily.Whole life Unschooling is the label I would use to help others understand the way we home educate.In practice that means that Emily has free choice to do what she finds interesting at any given time.We believe that learning happens all the time,in her own way and at her own pace and we aim to provide her with things that are interesting and fun for her to do,but accept if she chooses not to do them.We have moved away from set bedtimes and restrictions on food.With our guidance she is learning to listen to her body.Still working on it and by no means "there" yet but enjoying the journey and the unexpected benefit has been the growth Alan and I have gone through having to challenge our thinking about educational/parenting methods.It's all good and getting better by the day.

Home ed group today.We actually managed to get to it this week!! It has been AGES since we made it to a meet up with the group - various rea...

"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves."Buddha

I found this at the bottom of my Blog and decided I like it so much it needed to be somewhere I can see it daily ;-))Life shouldn't be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in, broadside, thouroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly shouting, 'WOW'.... Beth Moore.

petal

created for me by milly

play now

A few qoutes I like....

Life shouldn't be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in, broadside, thouroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly shouting, 'WOW'.... Beth Moore

The perpetual testing of public school children is like a gardener constantly pulling his plants up by the roots to see if they are growing....(unknown)

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instuction...Helen Kellers teacher

I hear and I forget I see and I remember I do and I understand...Confusious